


One Week

by twinpairodocs



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinpairodocs/pseuds/twinpairodocs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't their first fight, but it was their worst to date...and sometimes fights start about one thing and end up being about something else altogether.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Week

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for andrastesgrace's '90s Music fic roulette on tumblr. My prompt was the Barenaked Ladies song "One Week."
> 
> It's rated Teen for some salty language, just to be safe.
> 
> Hey BBC, I'm well aware that I don't own the Doctor and Rose. I hope you don't mind that I take them out to play every now and then. I'll put them back when I'm done.

'90s Music fic roulette (originated by Andrastesgrace on tumblr)

Prompt: "One Week" ~ Barenaked Ladies

 

It wasn’t the first fight, not by a long chalk. Once they’d gotten over tiptoeing around each other, once each finally believed that the other wasn’t going anywhere, they bickered just like any other couple. It was one way—the only way, really—that Rose’s new new new Doctor resembled her first Doctor. Not the blood and anger and revenge; they both knew that had just been a bill of goods, a handy excuse to leave them both there.

 

But whether he was some sort of regenerational reset back to the man Rose had met in Henrik’s cellar, or whether it was the infusion of some of Donna’s lip, this Doctor was quicker of temper, sharper of tongue, and just generally more irritable than the Doctor who had left them behind on the beach. And Rose had changed, too, since they’d been separated. She was used to taking charge, to bossing people around, and though she’d never really been one to take any shit, she took even less now. So they bickered. And sniped. And bitched. About who didn’t pick up the wet towels off the bathroom floor. About who left the milk out all day so there was none for tea the next morning. About who took more time in front of the mirror: Rose, putting on all that mascara; or the Doctor, experimenting with backcombing.

 

But this was their worst fight, the first really _bad_ fight.

 

They’d just had some frankly world-class (if he did say so himself) sex on the floor of their lounge. The room was dark, and blue shadows flickered off the walls, the ceiling, and their skin. They’d been watching reruns of _The X-Files_ , which in this universe was more or less the same, except that AD Skinner was a woman and Scully was the senior agent.

 

“You are, without a doubt, the best shag I’ve ever had,” Rose sighed, pulling a blanket off the couch and covering them as he curled into her like a jumbo shrimp, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

 

Naturally, the Doctor’s first response was to preen. “And I’m just a beginner, really! Think how much better I’ll be with some more practice.” He rubbed his nose along the line of her jaw, and his late-evening stubble rasped, not unpleasantly, against the tender skin of her throat.

 

“I think we can manage that,” she murmured drowsily.

 

 

 

But when he woke in the grey pre-dawn light, he started thinking. Thinking led to thoughts, which led to further reflections on her earlier assertion, which—he began to realize with some unease—led to some necessary follow-up questions. Questions he entertained for as long as he could before he finally nudged her awake. This took more than one attempt.

 

“Rose.”

 

“ _Unghf.”_

 

“Rooooose.”

 

She blinked blearily, gradually realized they were still on the floor, and stretched a little. “Okay,” she said sleepily. She stood up, clearly thinking he was suggesting a move to the bedroom. Which, now that he thought about it, wasn’t a bad idea. He could certainly pursue this line of inquiry from atop a cozy pillow top mattress. He followed her as she picked her way through the maze of Chinese take-out containers.

 

Rose stopped in the loo on her way back to bed, and he lay there waiting, arms folded behind his head, looking at the ceiling. She gave him a sleepy smile as she shuffled over and slipped under the duvet, turning on her side with her back to him. When he didn’t spoon up behind her like he always did, she rolled over and regarded him, one eyebrow raised.

 

“I’m sure I’ll regret asking, but I’ll ask anyway. Something on your mind?” she asked, her voice husky with sleep.

 

“Welllll…”

 

“Spill.”

 

“All right, well, you know when you said last night that I was the best shag you’d ever had?”

 

She nodded.

 

He hesitated, fiddling with a loose thread on the hem of the sheet. “I was just wondering…that is to say, what kind of sample size are we talking about here?”

 

She sat up halfway, propping herself on her elbows, and he tried not to be distracted by the sight of the sheet clinging tenuously to the upper slopes of her breasts. “What exactly are you asking me? You know, just so we’re clear.”

 

Her tone wasn’t encouraging, but in for a penny… “Best of how many?”

 

“Doctor.”

 

“Well, I mean, obviously there’s Mickey. And that bloke you left school for, what was his name—“

 

“Jimmy Stone,” she supplied, a touch coldly.

 

“And then there was Adam—or was there? Did you and Adam ever…?”

 

“We are not having this conversation.”

 

Suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he blanched. “Jack?”

 

Rose threw the covers aside and grabbed her dressing gown. “I need coffee.”

 

“Rose, please tell me you didn’t shag Jack!”

 

“And what if I did?” she bit out as she stalked out of the bedroom.

 

He lingered a bit, wondering if he should go after her or wait until she was suitably caffeinated. He could hear kitchen drawers being opened and closed with considerable volume and velocity, and the kettle slammed down onto the range top with a clang that made him flinch. _Surely she and Jack hadn’t…had they?_ Not that he could blame her, really; Jack was, after all, Jack. He began to feel a bit sick.

 

She was pouring cream into her coffee by the time he made up his mind to follow her to the kitchen. She stirred with exaggerated care, her jaw clenched. She didn’t turn to look at him, but she obviously knew he was there, because she spoke then, quietly.

 

“Why do you want to know, anyway?”

 

 “It was just a question, Rose. Why are you getting so upset?”

 

She did turn to look at him then. “Because when men ask that particular question, there’s almost never a ‘right answer’ and it almost never ends well. And, besides, it’s none of your business.”

 

“ _You’re_ my business.”

 

“Whatever I did before has nothing to do with us.”

 

He felt a flicker of guilt at that, which flared almost immediately into anger. “Then why won’t you answer the question? Is your sexual history some kind of state secret?”

 

She slammed the flat of her hand down on the table. “What do you think, I was bringing these blokes back to the TARDIS? Fucking them in my room, right under your nose?”

 

“I don’t know, were you?” he snapped.

 

“You were the one who brought Mickey along, not me! And _you_ were the one who left! _You_ left _me_ behind as soon as you found someone more interesting!” She was crying now. “You left me, Doctor—left _us_ —behind on that dead ship, in the middle of space, and you didn’t even think twice about it.”

 

“What are you—are you talking about Madame du Pompadour?”

 

“Yeah, why? Were there others?”

 

“Rose, you’re being ridiculous!”

 

“ _I’m_ being ridiculous? I never wanted anyone but you since the moment we met, _never_! You’re all concerned about my sex life, meanwhile you snogged her right in front of me! You crashed a bloody horse through a mirror to save her. Wouldn’t surprise me if you fucked her in that fancy French bed of hers, either.”

 

 _Fancy French bed?_ He couldn’t help himself; he laughed.

 

She stormed past him, going back into the bedroom. He rolled his eyes and followed her to apologize, but she was already yanking her suitcase out of the closet and throwing clothes into it.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Mum’s.”

 

And with the slam of the front door, she was gone.

 

 

 

Two days later, early Monday morning, he was making tea when he heard her key in the lock. It had been the longest weekend of his life, the first significant time he’d spent alone in this body, and he couldn’t decide whether to feel angry, hurt, guilty, or remorseful. Whatever he felt, the flat felt empty without her, and his heart leapt when he heard the door scrape over the jamb. Their eyes met briefly before hers flickered away.

 

“I have a meeting today. I came to get one of my suits,” she explained curtly as brushed past him on the way to the bedroom. All his hopes of tearful mutual apologies and make-up sex popped like so many soap bubbles, and he had worked his way back to irritable by the time she came into the lounge to retrieve her shoes, which she’d kicked off after work on Friday and never put away.

 

“So you’re just living at your mother’s now?”

 

She sighed. She looked tired. “Yeah.”

 

Not the answer he was hoping for. “So that’s it, then? It’s over because of something that happened years ago?”

 

“It wasn’t ‘something that happened.’ It was something you _did_.”

 

“Yeah, well, none of that was me! _I_ didn’t leave you! I didn’t do any of those things! I’m a different man!”

 

She rounded to face him. “Oh, really? So what was all that on the beach then about you and him being the same person? ‘Same thoughts, same memories, same everything’?”

 

“I’m not—that’s not what I’m—”

 

She laughed mirthlessly. It was the coldest thing he had ever heard. “Maybe that was all just to get me to trust you so you could get in my pants. And I wanted it to be true so bad that I fell for it, all of it.”

 

“Rose,” he said hollowly, “you know—you have to know—that’s not true.”

 

“I don’t know what’s true. I don’t know who you are.” Her words dropped like stones on the wood floor.

 

Later, his mobile chirped to alert him to her text message. She wrote, simply, “I didn’t mean that.” But when he texted back, she didn’t respond; when he rang, his call went straight to voicemail.

 

 

 

He held out until Wednesday before he started hinting around at Torchwood. Jake finally took pity on him and told him she’d gone out of town on a quick recon. So he alternately fumed and worried, and finally broke out the Jameson on Friday night. He was well into his second tumbler, and was sat by the window watching the rain when she came home at last. He stood, hands in pockets, as she dropped her umbrella into the stand and set down her suitcase—a detail that he did not fail to notice. They regarded each other for about ten seconds before her bottom lip trembled and they rushed into each other’s arms.

 

“I missed you,” she snuffled into his shoulder.

 

“I was worried…you weren’t at work…”

 

Rose pulled away to wipe her eyes, and he led her to the couch. She picked up his glass, sniffed it, and took a sip. She grimaced, and he laughed a little in pure relief that she was here and safe and not angry and _home_.

 

“I shouldn’t have said what I did,” she said quietly, looking down into the glass. “I know who you are, I’ve always known who you are.” She sipped again. “I only said it to hurt you and I wish I hadn’t.”

 

The Doctor took her hand then, twining his fingers with hers, and said what he’d been rehearsing for the last two days.

 

“Rose, when I said that wasn’t me, of course I didn’t mean that I wasn’t him. What I meant was that I’m a different man. No, wait, that still doesn’t make sense.”

 

He took a deep breath, and took another tack. “Me, the man I am now, I’m different from the other me. We were almost exactly the same that day in Norway, but with every minute that passes since our paths diverged, we’ve had different experiences, and those experiences shape who we are. And so we aren’t the same person anymore. I’ve had these past six months with you, living the life that he never could have, possibly never _would_ have, even if he could. And that’s changed me. I have no idea what his life has been like. But with every day that passes, we’re less and less the same person.”

 

She nodded, and he reached for her other hand, taking the glass from her and setting it on the table. He waited until she met his eyes.

 

“But that’s not what I was talking about. What I really meant is that I could never do that now, could never just leave you like that—even though I trust you to make your way back home, even if I did have a plan to get back to the TARDIS myself. The man that made that decision didn’t know what it was to live without you. I do. When I lost you at Canary Wharf, I…”

 

He sniffed, swallowed hard. “Rose, I would let history go hang before I would walk away from you again.”

 

She kissed him then, one hand on his cheek, her lips salty from her tears and smoky from the whiskey. And they took each other to bed, and made promises like _forever_ and _never_ with their mouths and with their bodies.

 

But it was still two days before they said they were sorry.

 

 

 


End file.
